Richard Speck a short time ago mentioned a Hydrogen Farm in another thread - it was Lunar ISRU if I remember correct. And I also seem to remember that he talks about it in the General Micro Space Forum.

Because of two articles about Mercury this caused me an idea that would be an extension of such a Hydrogen Farm. I already was thinking about getting rid of the Oxygen and Hydrogen blown away from Mars by the Solar Wind long ago but got the hint that this occurs high in the atmosphere of Mars.

Mercury doesn't have such an atmosphere and as far as I understand it material blown away by the solar wind stems from the surface directly.

When the solar wind hits Mercury's surface its sputters particles off into the magnetosphere. MESSENGER detected these ionized atoms as it sailed through the magnetosphere; it found silicon, sodium, sulfur and even water ions surrounding the planet.

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So what about harvesting those atoms directly on the surface? It would have to be materials melting at temperatures aboce those on the mercurian surface.

In particular the water ions may be interesting...

But the thought may be of interest beyond Mercury - what about the asteroids as well as other large rocky planets Is material blown away there also? If so then the idea of a Farm could be applied there since the temepratures are far below the mercurian ones.

Mining via ram scoops- The concentrations are exceedingly sparse, even by solar wind standards, which is pretty thin too. You would probably need a huge "net" going a health precentage of C to collect enough mass to make it worth while. Might as well just land on the rocks and get dirty.

The images show the fractures are about 980 feet (300 meters) deep, with V-shaped inner walls.

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So even this might be no problem - the entire length of the fractures might be covered by a long container.

This way Enceladus might be made habitable to a low degree or hte water might be harvested and brouht to Mars or other planets. Another alternative might be to crack it and enable refuelling of space vehicles at Enceladus - but this I would prefer to do harvsting from the rings.